CrossFit Journal - Issue 04

8/10/2019 CrossFit Journal - Issue 04

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December 2002

Squat Clinic - pg 1Fast food - pg 1Ergometer Scores - pg 8CrossFit Hall of Fame Workouts - pg 8

Squat Clinic

Why Squat?

The squat is essential to your well-being. The squat can both

greatly improve your athleticism and keep your hips, back, and

knees sound and functioning

in your senior years.

Not only is the squat notdetrimental to the knees it is

remarkably rehabilitative of

cranky, damaged, or delicate

knees. In fact, if you do not

squat, your knees are not

healthy regardless of how

free of pain or discomfort

you are. This is equally true

of the hips and back.

The squat is no more

an invention of a coach

or trainer than is the hiccup or sneeze. It is a vital, natural,

functional, component of your being.

The squat, in the bottom position, is natures intended sitting

posture (chairs are not part of your biological make-up), and the

rise from the bottom to the stand is the biomechanically sound

method by which we stand-up. There is nothing contrived or

articial about this movement.

Most of the worlds inhabitants sit not on chairs but in a squat.

Meals, ceremonies, conversation, gatherings, and defecation are

all performed bereft of chairs or seats. Only in the industrialized

world do we nd the need for chairs, couches, benches, andstools. This comes at a loss of functionality that contributes

immensely to decrepitude.

Frequently, we encounter individuals whose doctor or

chiropractor has told them not to squat. In nearly every instance

this is pure ignorance on the part of the practitioner. When a

doctor that doesnt like the squat is asked, by what method

should your patient get off of the toilet? they are at a loss for

words.

(continued on pg 2)

THE

CrossFit JournalIN THIS ISSUE:

Fast Food

One of the more common explanations for bad diet is being too

busy to eat right. On the face of it this may seem plausible.

There are a multitude of things that we are each too busy to do.

It seems logical that there are more things that we dont have

time for than we do have time for because there are an innite

number of things to do, but we can only experience a nite

number of them.

But because eating is not optional, the important question is not

how much time it takes to eat right but whether it takes longer

to eat right than to eat wrong? We thought an experiment was

in order.

We sent two teams out at lunchtime. Team A, the too busy to

eat right team headed for Dairy Queen and Team B, the not

too busy to eat right team, went to the local grocery store, Nob

Hill Foods.

The eatery is right across the street from the grocery company

so differences in travel time was not a factor in timing the two

approaches.

We instructed our too busy to eat right team, Team A, to order

a meal that was not right, simply because the too busy to

eat right team doesnt eat right by denition. We are of the

opinion that even the worst eatery can be made better by better

choices, but that is the stuff of another article.

(continued on pg 7)

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December 2002

(continued from page1, column1)

In a similarly misinformed manner we have heard trainers and health care providers suggest that the knee should not be bent past

90 degrees. Its entertaining to ask proponents of this view to sit on the ground with their legs out in front of them and then to stand

without bending the legs more than 90 degrees. It cant be done without some grotesque bit of contrived movement. The truth is that

getting up off of the oor involves a force on at least one knee that is substantially greater than the squat.

Our presumption is that those who counsel against the squat are either just repeating nonsense theyve heard in the media or at the

gym, or in their clinical practice theyve encountered people whove injured themselves squatting incorrectly.

It is entirely possible to injure yourself squatting incorrectly, but it is also exceedingly easy to bring the squat to a level of safetymatched by walking. In the accompanying article we explain how that is done.

On the athletic front, the squat is the quintessential hip extension exercise, and hip extension is the foundation of all good human

movement. Powerful, controlled hip extension is necessary and nearly sufcient for elite athleticism. Necessary in that without

powerful, controlled hip extension you are not functioning anywhere near your potential. Sufcient in the sense that everyone weve

met with the capacity to explosively open the hip could also run, jump, throw, and punch with impressive force.

Secondarily, but no less important, the squat is among those exercises eliciting a potent neuroendocrine response. This benet is ample

reason for an exercises inclusion in your regimen.

The Air Squat

All our athletes begin their squatting with the air squat, that is, without any weight other than body weight. As a matter of terminology

when we refer to the squat we are talking about an unladen, bodyweight only squat. When we wish to refer to a weighted squat we

will use the term back squat, overhead squat, or front squat referring to those distinct weighted squats. The safety and efcacy of

How to Squat

Here are some valuable cues to a sound squat. Many encourage identical

behaviors.

1. Start with the feet about shoulder width apart and slightly toed out.

2. Keep your head up looking slightly above parallel.

3. Dont look down at all; ground is in peripheral vision only.

4. Accentuate the normal arch of the lumbar curve and then pull the excess

arch out with the abs.

5. Keep the midsection very tight.

6. Send your butt back and down.

7. Your knees track over the line of the foot.

8. Dont let the knees roll inside the foot.

9. Keep as much pressure on the heels as possible.

10. Stay off of the balls of the feet.

11. Delay the knees forward travel as much as possible.

12. Lift your arms out and up as you descend.

13. Keep your torso elongated.

14. Send hands as far away from your butt as possible.

15. In prole, the ear does not move forward during the squat, it travels

straight down.

16. Dont let the squat just sink, but pull yourself down with your hip exors.

17. Dont let the lumbar curve surrender as you settle in to the bottom.

18. Stop when the fold of the hip is below the knee break parallel with the

thigh.

19. Squeeze glutes and hamstrings and rise without any leaning forward or

shifting of balance.

20. Return on the exact same path as you descended.

21. Use every bit of musculature you can; there is no part of the bodyuninvolved.

22. On rising, without moving the feet, exert pressure to the outside of your

feet as though you were trying to separate the ground beneath you.

23. At the top of the stroke stand as tall as you possibly can.

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December 2002

training with the front, back, and overhead squats, before the weightless variant has been mastered retards athletic potential.

When has the squat been mastered? This is a good question. It is fair to say that the squat is mastered when both technique and

performance are superior. This suggests that none of the twenty-three points above are decient and fast multiple reps are possible.

Our favorite standard for fast multiple reps would be the Tabata Squat (20 seconds on/10 seconds off repeated 8 times) with the

weakest of eight intervals being between 18-20 reps. Dont misunderstand - were looking for 18-20 perfect squats in twenty seconds,

rest for ten and repeat seven more times for a total of eight intervals.

The most common faults to look for are surrendering of the lumbar curve at the bottom, not breaking the parallel plane with the thighs,

slouching in the chest and shoulders, looking down, lifting the heels, and not fully extending the hip at the top. Dont even think about

weighted squats until none of these faults belong to you.

Common Faults or Anatomy of a Bad Squat

Not Breaking the Parallel Plain Rolling Knees Inside Feet Dropping Head

Losing Lumbar Extension(rounding the back - this may be the worst)

Dropping the Shoulders Heels Off the Gound

A relatively small angle of hip extension (at back) while indicative of a beginners or weak squat and caused by weak hips

extensors is not strictly considered a fault as long as the lumbar spine is in extension.

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December 2002

Therapies for Common Faults

Bar Holds: Grab a bar racked higher and closerthan your normal reach at bottom of squat, then

settle into perfect bottom with chest, head, hands,

arms, shoulders, and back higher than usual. Find

balance, let go, repeat closer and higher, etc. Lifts

squat (raises head, chest, shoulders, and torso)

putting more load on heels and glute/hams. Thisimmediately forces a solid bottom posture from

which you have the opportunity to feel the forces

required to balance in good posture. This is a

reasonable shoulder stretch but not as good as the

overhead squat. See below. This is a very effective

therapy.

Not Finishing the Squat - not com-

pleting hip extension

Causes of the Bad Squat

1. Weak glute/hamstring. The glutes and hams are responsible for powerful hip

extension, which is the key to the athletic performance universe.

2. Poor engagement, weak control, and no awareness of glute and hamstring. The

road to powerful, effective hip extension is a three to ve year odyssey for

most athletes.

3. Resulting attempt to squat with quads. Leg extension dominance over hipextension is a leading obstacle to elite performance in athletes.

4. Inexibility. With super tight hamstrings youre screwed. This is a powerful

contributor to slipping out of lumbar extension and into lumbar exion the

worst fault of all.

5. Sloppy work, poor focus. This is not going to come out right by accident. It

takes incredible effort. The more you work on the squat the more awareness

you develop as to its complexity.

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December 2002

Box squatting:Squat to a ten inch box, rest at bottom without altering posture, then squeeze and rise without rocking

forward. Keep perfect posture at bottom. This is a classic bit of technology perfected at the Westside Barbell Club. See

their site and links.

Bottom to bottoms:Stay at the bottom and come up to full extension and quickly return to bottom spending much more

time at bottom than top. For instance sitting in the bottom for ve minutes coming up to full extension only once every

ve seconds, i.e., sixty reps. Many will avoid the bottom like the plague. You want to get down there, stay down there,

and learn to like it.

Overhead Squats:Hold broom stick at snatch grip width directly overhead, arms locked. Triangle formed by arms and

stick must stay perfectly perpendicular as you squat. Good shoulder stretch and lifts squat. With weight, this exercise

demands good balance and posture or loads become wildly unmanageable. The overhead squat is a quick punisher of

sloppy technique. If shoulders are too tight this movement will give an instant diagnosis. You can move into a doorway

and nd where the arms fall and cause the stick to bang into doorway. Lift the arms, head, chest, back, and hip enough

to travel up and down without hitting the doorway. Over time, work to move feet closer and closer to doorway without

hitting. The broomstick foundation is critical to learning the Snatch the worlds fastest lift.

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December 2002

String Touch:Hang something on a string, like a tennis ball or shrunken head, at max reach, and touch it at every rep. Alternate

hands touching. This is a great Tabata drill. This drill will knock the Tabata Interval score (lowest number of squats in any of eight

intervals) down for those people who dont complete their squats by not fully extending the hip.

If you have a 900-pound squat youve already learned everything weve covered - you wouldnt have gotten there otherwise. You

dont need a 900 pound squat though, or even a heavy one to harvest immense benet from the movement.

We advocate weighted squats but only after foundational mastery. It is during this period of mastering the foundations of the squat

that the primary athletic benet will be sowed. Interval squat work, interestingly, without weight, is a means toward tness and

athleticism - CrossFit style - that is only enhanced by heavy work, not overshadowed by it. This is not well known. We can and

have proven it.

Much of the best of human movement

that is efcient and effective radiates

from the core to the extremities in awave of muscular contractions. As

often as not, the quality of the hips

extension is a super-critical factor

in determining the quality of human

performance. This is the nature of

running, jumping, throwing, and

punching - the all-stars of sport and

performance. Optimal hip capacity -

power, exibility, speed, and stamina

- arent to be had without the squat.

Not going to parallel (not deepenough) Weak hip extensors, laziness,quad dominance Bottom to bottoms, Bar Holds,Box Squatting

Rolling knees inside feet. Weak adductors, cheat to quads Push feet to outside of shoe,

deliberately adduct (attempt to

stretch oor apart beneath feet.)

Dropping head Lack of focus, weak upper back,

lack of upper back control

Bar Holds, Overhead squats,

Losing lumbar extension Lack of focus, tight hamstrings,

cheat for balance due to weak

glute/hams

Bar Holds, Overhead squats

Dropping shoulders Lack of focus, weak upper back,

lack of upper back control, tight

shoulders

Bar Holds, Overhead squats

Heels off ground Cheat for balance due to weak

glute/hams

Focus, Bar Holds

Incomplete hip extension Cheating, sets wrong

neurological pattern avoiding

most important part of squat

String Touch

Faults Causes Therapies

The CrossFit Journal is an electronically distributed magazine

(emailed e-zine) published monthly bywww.crosst.comchronicling aproven method of achieving elite tness.

For subscription information go to:http://www.crosst.com/shop/enter.html,

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December 2002

Team B, was instructed to select for nutrition and convenience.

Again, our chief concern was about time to serving because were testing

the claim that eating poorly is quicker than eating properly. But, we

couldnt help but wonder, what are the cost differences and how profound

can the nutritional choices be?

The fast food Team, Team A, the one that was too busy to eat right got their

food in 17 minutes and 45 seconds from leaving the gym to food in hand.

The grocery store Team, Team B, the one with the extra time to eat right

got their food in 14 minutes and 23 seconds beating the busy guys by 3

minutes and 22 seconds.

The fast food - Dairy Queen - was a double cheeseburger, large fries, and

a chocolate shake. The cost was $6.12.

The grocery store food Nob Hill Foods was 6 ounces of turkey breast

from the deli counter, two Fuji Apples, and 1 ounce of roasted cashews.

The cost was $5.39 edging out the Dairy Queen by 73 cents.

Team Bs turkey, apples, and cashews were selected to meet the nutritional needs for a 165 pound lean athletes meal. By Zone

nomenclature this calculates to about four blocks of protein, fat, and carbohydrate each.

Team As burger, fries, and shake by comparison measure

out to 8 blocks of protein, 23 blocks of fat, and 22 blocks

of carbohydrate. This meal therefore exceeds the 165

pound athletes requirements by double the protein, over

ve times the carbohydrate, and nearly six times the fat.

The cost per calorie of the fast food is lower than thegrocery stores but the real cost of the cheaper food is

poorer health. Still, the cost per meal was lower at the

grocery store.

So eating right is certainly quicker and cheaper (per meal)

than eating junk food. We have enough time to eat right

use the time youd otherwise use to eat wrong.

Good Food Bad Food

Tasters Choice

(continued from page 1, column2)

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December 2002

Ergometer Scores

Rowing ergometer times are dominated by heavier athletes.

Check out the Concept II rankings for lightweight and

heavyweights at every distance. Ergometer rowing is a

heavyweights game!

The reasons for this are a complex blend of physics and

physiology, and the inuences differ from one type of

ergometer to another and from shorter to longer distances.

In fact, the science of rowing and ergometers gives ample

opportunity to brush up on a lot of basic physiology, physics,

and mathematics.

Tim Granger of Cambridge University has developed an

algorithm that allows us to compare rowing scores at different

weights. There are some inherent limitations, and Tim explains

these on his site, but overall this is an excellent method to

handicap rowing scores so that we can compare achievements.

For instance using this algorithm we nd that a 220 pound (100

kg) male with a 7 minute 2,000 meters equates to a 165 pound

(75 kg) male rowing a 7:30 2,000 meters.

It is important to note that Dr. Granger developed this algorithm

from looking at the mathematical relationships of world record

erg times at varying distances. The signicance here is that

we are comparing individuals at varying weights by models

that reect the relationships found among individuals whove

nearly optimized human performance.

This algorithm makes one of CrossFits more effective and

challenging tools, the Concept II Rower, into an even morepractical and meaningful experience by offering a level playing

eld.

Here are some great sites on rowing science:

Weight/sex/age adjusted ergo ladder (http://

archive.comlab.ox.ac.uk/other/rowing/ergo-ladder.html).

Rowperfects unique design (http://www.rowperfect.com.au/

design.html) and compensation for weight (http://

www.rowperfect.com.au/weight.html).

From Oxford University, the basic physics of rowing (http:

//www.atm.ox.ac.uk/rowing/physics/basics.html#section5).

From Oxford University, the physics of ergometers (http:

//www-atm.atm.ox.ac.uk/rowing/physics/ergometer.html).Rowing physiology and performance from a renowned exercise

physiologist and rowing coach, Dr. Stephen Seiler (http:

//home.hia.no/~stephens/rowing.htm).

Three Cool Workouts

What these three workouts have in common is that each is

complete in that they are simple, demanding, and effective. We

cant think about them without laughing. (They also each use

the rower.)

The rst is our famous Fight Gone Bad workout. In thisworkout you move from each of ve stations after a minute.

This is a ve-minute round from which a one-minute break

is allowed before repeating. Weve used this in 3 and 5 round

versions.

The stations are:

1. Wall-ball 20 pound ball, 8 ft target. (Reps)

2. Deadlift high-pull 75 pounds (Reps)

3. Box Jump 20 box (Reps)

4. Push-press 75 pounds (Reps)

5. Row calories (Calories)

The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call ofrotate, the athlete/s must move to next station immediately

for good score.

One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where each

calorie is one point.

With this workout we can give an integer value to a metabolic

preparedness for mixed modal high intensity efforts matched to

professional ght parameters (UFC).

The second is the Tabata This workout where the Tabata

Interval of 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest

repeated 8 times is applied in turn to the Squat, Rower, Pull-ups, Sit-ups, and Push-ups with a one minute rotation break

between exercises.

Each exercise is scored by the weakest number of reps (calories

on the rower) in each of the eight intervals. During the one-

minute rotation time allowed the clock is not stopped but

kept running. The score is the total of the scores from the ve

stations.

This workout stands the Tabata Interval concept on its head but

is so potent in impact (dont want to give it away) that it stands

remembered as a favorite by our crew.

A third classic CrossFit workout is the elegant row/thruster/

pull-up workout featuring a 1,000-meter row, 45 pound

fty-rep thruster (deep front squat/push-pres), and 30 pull-

ups. This pit bull of a workout is scored by the time to complete

all exercises. Play with different orders of the three exercises

and compare times.

These three workouts can each be used to quantify your capacity

in a manner that reects the CrossFit model for tness.

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http://www.concept2.com/sranking/rankings.asphttp://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~tjg21/java/Erg2.htmlhttp://archive.comlab.ox.ac.uk/other/rowing/ergo-ladder.htmlhttp://archive.comlab.ox.ac.uk/other/rowing/ergo-ladder.htmlhttp://www.rowperfect.com.au/design.htmlhttp://www.rowperfect.com.au/design.htmlhttp://www.rowperfect.com.au/weight.htmlhttp://www.rowperfect.com.au/weight.htmlhttp://www.atm.ox.ac.uk/rowing/physics/basics.html#section5http://www.atm.ox.ac.uk/rowing/physics/basics.html#section5http://www-atm.atm.ox.ac.uk/rowing/physics/ergometer.htmlhttp://www-atm.atm.ox.ac.uk/rowing/physics/ergometer.htmlhttp://home.hia.no/~stephens/rowing.htmhttp://home.hia.no/~stephens/rowing.htmhttp://home.hia.no/~stephens/rowing.htmhttp://home.hia.no/~stephens/rowing.htmhttp://www-atm.atm.ox.ac.uk/rowing/physics/ergometer.htmlhttp://www-atm.atm.ox.ac.uk/rowing/physics/ergometer.htmlhttp://www.atm.ox.ac.uk/rowing/physics/basics.html#section5http://www.atm.ox.ac.uk/rowing/physics/basics.html#section5http://www.rowperfect.com.au/weight.htmlhttp://www.rowperfect.com.au/weight.htmlhttp://www.rowperfect.com.au/design.htmlhttp://www.rowperfect.com.au/design.htmlhttp://archive.comlab.ox.ac.uk/other/rowing/ergo-ladder.htmlhttp://archive.comlab.ox.ac.uk/other/rowing/ergo-ladder.htmlhttp://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~tjg21/java/Erg2.htmlhttp://www.concept2.com/sranking/rankings.asp

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CrossFit Journal - Issue 04